World’s top restaurant plans to visit Houston on special culinary tour

The Roca brothers – international culinary superstars and owners of El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, Spain, which holds the distinction of being the world’s best restaurant – are set to rock Houston.

BBVA Compass will bring the Rocas (chef Joan Roca, sommelier Josep Roca and pastry chef Jordi Roca) to Houston in August as the first stop of the Roca & Roll World Tour 2014, a partnership between the restaurant and parent company Spanish bank BBVA. Details of the tour will be announced by BBVA Compass on May 19 in Houston with Joan Roca, the eldest of the brothers and co-founder of the restaurant, in attendance.

Last year the three-star Michelin restaurant climbed its way to No. 1 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. The brothers are recognized as culinary royalty for their work at the avant-garde restaurant that displaced Noma in Cophenhagen as the world’s best restaurant. (Spain’s now-closed el Bulli had the top rank for four years in a row from 2006 to 2009.)

The restaurant, sold out for the rest of 2014, is not interested in opening a branch, so it partnered with BBVA to take its show on the road – a clever marketing move by BBVA, and a way for people shut out of reservations to get the El Celler experience. El Celler will close for five weeks and take a kitchen staff of about two dozen on the Roca & Roll World Tour, which this summer will also set down for several days each in Mexico City, Lima, Medellin and New York. The special dinners and events planned for the tour are private.